NCJ Number
85510
Date Published
1982
Length
413 pages
Annotation
This book discusses, in a comparatively brief format, the legal infrastructures of the three major legal traditions of the West -- the civil law, common law, and socialist traditions.
Abstract
The discussion compares the legal infrastructures of the three law systems rather than their substantive law in the belief that students' understanding of legal systems will be enhanced if they are first introduced to the different legal systems as systems with their distinctive components and internal relations. The three systems identified and discussed are distinguished by historical background and development of the legal system, theory and hierarchy of sources of law, the working methodology of jurists within the legal system, the characteristic legal concepts used by each system, the legal institutions of the system, and the divisions of law used within the system. In the presentation, each tradition is described under the topics of history, culture, and distribution; legal structures; roles and actors; procedure; rules; and sources of law. Under the assumption that the readers are primarily familiar with the American legal system, U.S. law is the constant point of reference for comparisons. Selected bibliographies accompany each major part, and a subject index is provided.